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I don't have a whole lot of meat - about 70M on hand, more if and when some of my old IotMs sell (e.g. I have an unused Unconscious Collective hatchling, which I'm tempted to use since the free rests are so amazing with the Chateau - but 200M would go a long way to catching me up)

I have plenty of Unrestricted to play - all the challenge paths I missed for a start - but I do want to work toward a decent Standard-legal setup, so barring very powerful stuff I want to prioritise newer things - ones that will last for awhile.

Things I'm eying up, in very rough order of priority, are:
- Orphan Tot (cheap, seems very strong - super fairy, super lep - and good for two years. Also Costume Quest! )
- Time spinner (hassle free, should be enough to give me a full EPIC diet, and it's another way of copying, two years)
- LT&T (cheap, easy, 2 years)
- Machine Elf (seems powerful - though only good for one year, boo. Abstractions look very strong)
- X-32-F Snowman (cheap, free fights always good, two years)
- Haunted doghouse (only one year, but looks pretty strong, and I'm a sucker for the reference)
- Thanksgarden (good in Standard, but competes with Winter garden in unrestricted)
- Mayo clinic (expensive, looks fiddly, only 1 year in Standard [and in Unrestricted, competes with DNA]))

As (very) awesome as it looks, I'm pretty much ruling out the Puck, due to excessive cost and only being good for one year.

So, have I missed anything I should be considering? Any advice on what to get first? What would you get?

- Tot's unicorn costume gives +5 adventures in a 2-day run (more in longer runs), depending on permed skills and other available things, the other costumes can be either massive boons or nice conveniences
- Time-spinner, as you mentioned, can multiply turngen quite well (one terminal cookie multipled, using the remaining extrudes on gibsons) or cut turns through the copies
- LT&T is a nice convenience, the boots can give +5 adventures if so desired
- Machine Elf is mostly a turncutter and a very strong source of MP, the +statgain% abstractions can be a bit excessive with LOV, but shouldn't hurt
- Wiener dog is very good quality-of-life, though it does have ways of cutting turns through location-specific encounters and the rare tennis ball
- Thanksgarden is flexible, turncutting with it often involves harvesting only on the last day to maximize cashews
- Mayo is not too fiddly after getting used to it (muscle memory/macroing /buy and /use before eating), and a pretty nice source of turngen, and invaluable for PvP

Not mentioned:
- Barrel God (2015) is also nice quality-of-life like the Wiener Dog, giving plenty of autosellable things to fund MP restoration/mayo/other expenses
- Tea Tree (2015, might be out of price range) provides a lot of small bonuses, which can include turngen through increased organ space or turncutting through various effects (including free crafting, which Standard lacks at the moment)
- Perming more skills would also help in cutting days, the last several IotMs have introduced a lot of neat content and skills that are quite powerful, and often don't require owning the IotM that they came from. Notable examples include Snojo and LT&T skills, but even regular class skills can be quite handy.

If generating turns to meet daycount is the main concern, then I think I would give more consideration to the Time-spinner and Mayo clinic, but if it's easier to cut turns, then most everything mentioned can help in some way (sorry that was vague).

somersaulter wrote:
- Tot's unicorn costume gives +5 adventures in a 2-day run (more in longer runs), depending on permed skills and other available things, the other costumes can be either massive boons or nice conveniences
- Time-spinner, as you mentioned, can multiply turngen quite well (one terminal cookie multipled, using the remaining extrudes on gibsons) or cut turns through the copies

I've picked up both of these since I posted (Spring Break charter and spare DNA lab sold ).

somersaulter wrote:
- LT&T is a nice convenience, the boots can give +5 adventures if so desired
- Machine Elf is mostly a turncutter and a very strong source of MP, the +statgain% abstractions can be a bit excessive with LOV, but shouldn't hurt
- Wiener dog is very good quality-of-life, though it does have ways of cutting turns through location-specific encounters and the rare tennis ball
- Thanksgarden is flexible, turncutting with it often involves harvesting only on the last day to maximize cashews
- Mayo is not too fiddly after getting used to it (muscle memory/macroing /buy and /use before eating), and a pretty nice source of turngen, and invaluable for PvP

My feeling is I should aim for Mayo. I get that it's strong. It just ... leaves me cold though, and looks annoying to use. (And it's more expensive than any of the other options I'm considering)

Melf would be a no brainer if it would last longer, but doesn't seem like a good investment for just this year.

Hmm, the autosell value is something I hadn't considered. Price is dropping too.

somersaulter wrote:
- Tea Tree (2015, might be out of price range) provides a lot of small bonuses, which can include turngen through increased organ space or turncutting through various effects (including free crafting, which Standard lacks at the moment)

Yeah, too rich for my blood. I could get three other IotMs I want instead - or half a Puck.

somersaulter wrote:
- Perming more skills would also help in cutting days, the last several IotMs have introduced a lot of neat content and skills that are quite powerful, and often don't require owning the IotM that they came from. Notable examples include Snojo and LT&T skills, but even regular class skills can be quite handy.

I've already grabbed the Snojo skills, and I'll be perming some of the elemental charter ones when I'm done with my current aftercore. LT&T next - hadn't realised how awesome those were, especially with all the free fight/free kill options around now.

I'm kinda scraping the barrel on regular class skills though. Admittedly I lack the full combat suite for a few of the classes (I'd already mostly stopped playing when the huge revamp hit), but I think I have all the generally applicable stuff, and the combat stuff for the classes I prefer to use for real speed attempts...

I do need to do some planning on skills though - perhaps another post like this one I'd definitely like some advice on the Dread skills, for instance...

somersaulter wrote:
If generating turns to meet daycount is the main concern, then I think I would give more consideration to the Time-spinner and Mayo clinic, but if it's easier to cut turns, then most everything mentioned can help in some way (sorry that was vague).

Well, turns out a 3 day HC Standard was a breeze (SO much turngen now!), so my goalposts need to be a little further back than I thought
2 day is the target now, and turncutting the main priority.

Songs are probably the most ascension-relevant. Slowness (+init) is useful for the cyrpt, North is useful for the tavern and "boss" Witchess pieces, and Sauce is also useful for the tavern and making life even easier as a Sauceror, although the spell damage boost might be redundant with the battle broom from Witchess. Starch and Bravado are a bit more limited in use, but they do have situations in which they're quite helpful, like in Community Service and beefing up scaling monsters. All songs can also be helpful for the NS tower.

Spaghetti Breakfast and Cold One both help with turngen a little bit, although depending on one's own goals these might be given more or less priority. Cold Ones are more flexible than Spaghetti Breakfasts.

As for the combat skills, this is where things get very situational.

-Conspiratorial Whispers is a bit like Weaksauce, providing delevels (and damage) over time, which is mostly just handy for the Witchess Witch.
-Sauceshell can buy an extra round vs. the Wall of Skin for passive damage sources to do a bit more damage.
-Shadow Noodles is a (MP-expensive) stun, which might be useful for low ML situations.
-Carbohydrate Cudgel makes for a decent panic button, although it does prevent the fight from dropping items and meat. Useful for guaranteeing stats from a monster, if not interested in what that monster has to drop.
-Turtleini is a skill that scales with spell damage but is not considered a spell, which might be helpful for the Beer Golem in Fernswarthy's.
-Splattersmash has an unlimited group multiplier, which could potentially useful in current paths vs. the Wall of Bones once Garbage Nova goes out of style next year.
-Splashdance is like a stronger, more MP-expensive version of Saucy Salve, healing HP as a free action.
-Club Earth is a very MP-expensive stagger.

(A belated) thanks for that, somersaulter. Looks like there are quite a few there that would benefit me a whole lot more than the fairly marginal standard class skills I have left to get.

Any idea where/how would be a good place to look for an instance and group to pick up a few of these? I've tried just dropping into Dreadsylvania in the various clans I'm whitelisted to, but they're usually empty - and the Machine charges are usually gone anyway. Do people plan ahead and open instances specifically for this? Is there somewhere people discuss it?

<edit>...and I've just noticed the area on this very forum for that purpose. . (Perhaps I didn't have access to that before? That's my excuse! ).